


Reconciliation

by Houdini_the_Second



Category: Bayonetta (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Bayojeanne, Bisexual Female Character, Drama, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Lesbian Character, Multi, Romance, Sexy Times
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2019-11-28 01:00:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18201347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houdini_the_Second/pseuds/Houdini_the_Second
Summary: Two months after the events at Fimbulventr, Jeanne and Bayonetta find themselves slowly easing back into domestic life again. Jeanne continues to teach, while moonlighting as the elusive "Cutie J," and Bayonetta finds herself doing a slew of odd jobs for Rodin to pass the time. Just when the girls finally feel like they can catch their breath, a shockingly familiar face reappears in New York City, tossing the girls right back into the elusive grip of time.BayoJeanne fic!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Find my Bayonetta blog at bayonettas-left-eye.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Short chapter to start off!

** Chapter 1 **

“Jeanne! Jeanne, there she is!”

Slowly, Jeanne lifted her head from the foreboding pile of ungraded homework that had been looming over her for the worse part of the afternoon. She hadn’t yet graded one paper before Cereza had enthusiastically called for her attention, something the 600-years-young witch adored.  

She loved Cereza. Occasionally, she admitted it, quietly and in her head, in the early hours of the morning before she drunkenly squeezed her eyes shut for her daily 4-hour power nap.

She loved Cereza, and sometimes she wondered if Cereza loved her back. It wasn’t something they had ever spoken about. Even with their lengthy sexual history, something that spanned as far back as their time in the clan together, neither had ever explicitly declared feelings of romance for the other. 

500 years ago, as teenagers, they had teetered on romance’s sharp edge. Each others’ first for everything, the girls had secretly courted one another under the venomously watchful eyes of the Umbra Elders, particularly the Clan leader, who had happened to be Jeanne’s grandmother. Jeanne had always envisioned herself settling down with Cereza in a loving, but forbidden tryst for the rest of their gleefully eternal lives.

But her desires had remained purely imaginary, and instead, both women had been ripped away from each other before their romance had hit its climax. 

Reunited 500 years later...things had changed. 

It mostly had to do with Bayonetta’s memories. Even now, with her history soundly intact in her brain, Bayonetta sometimes struggled to reconcile her memories with her current lifestyle. How did one tie up 500 year old loose ends?

Jeanne, with the patience of saint, never pushed her. She instead preferred to take solace in the fact that her best friend was happy and healthy. 

Yes...she did occasionally cry herself to sleep, and yes, she sometimes restrained herself from screaming,  _I love you!,_ while they fucked, but for the most part, her deepest want was for Cereza to be happy.

Admittedly, she had thought things would have changed after Fimbulventr. Something felt like it had changed on the mountain. 

Bayonetta looked at her differently now. Occasionally, when their eyes met, her gaze would linger and the edges of her perfectly shaped lips would tilt upwards in a wanting smile, but Jeanne could never be sure if the wanting was for more than what the two currently offered each other.

She wondered if all the sarcasm and playful quips had tarnished their chance at romance. Had the love gotten lost underneath what seemed to be a strictly platonic string of never ending banter?

“ _Jeanne.”_

Cereza’s impatient voice cut through Jeanne’s internal monologue, and the woman’s stone gray eyes refocused her attention on the object of her bottomless affection.

Bayonetta, comfortably curled on the couch across from the small dining table where Jeanne endeavored to grade papers, was pointing excitedly at the television.

A rerun of the 5 PM news hour was playing, and the anchor was adamantly narrating the events of the day, covering a vigilante-intercepted crime that had occurred on the fringes of Brooklyn.

Bayonetta’s eyes were glued to the lithe, white clad figure that pounced from building-top to building-top while the news station’s helicopter-cam struggled to keep up.

Upon close inspection, anyone with eyes as diligent as a witch’s could identify the tightly woven hair suit and intricately crafted style of the Umbra witches that decorated the graceful form of what was undeniably a woman’s body.

An Umbra Witch who concealed her face behind a feline inspired mask, over the course of the last year the self-proclaimed “Cutie J,” had become an iconic New York City superhero. Initially spotted in some of Brooklyn’s most murky residential neighborhoods, her reputation had grown beyond the single borough’s reaches. In recent months, she had been spotted in Harlem, and even as far as the Bronx.

But mostly, she stuck to Brooklyn, and remained an at least weekly form of news entertainment.

Cereza had immediately become enchanted with her and ardently pestered Jeanne to seek their Umbran sister out. They just  _had_  to make their presence known to her.

“ _She must be terribly lonely.”_

_“Let sleeping dogs lie, Cereza,” Jeanne had flippantly responded at the time, waving one gloriously elegant arm dismissively, “If she wanted to be found, we would already be acquainted.”_

Bayonetta had crossed her arms, pushing her lower lip out in the spitting image of stubborn refusal, but Jeanne had convinced her to leave it be, relishing in Cereza’s adorable, but not often seen, pout.

Of course, there were other reasons Jeanne refused to seek out Cutie J’s company.

Mostly because,  _she was Cutie J_.

How Cereza remained clueless eluded and entertained her. During the clan’s existence, there had been very few platinum blonde witches; Jeanne’s royal bloodline had been one of the only ones. And Cutie J’s hairsuit was of an undeniably similar (identical) color to Jeanne’s.

Or perhaps, Cereza feigned innocence...

At this thought, Jeanne’s eyes flickered to survey her waiting friend.

She resisted the urge to smirk. Bayonetta had rested a calculating gaze on Jeanne’s face.

“You never care when she’s on the news, you know.”

“I know.”

“Well, why not?” the dark Umbra Witch demanded, crossing her arms in a show of defiant sass.

“I’ve said it before Cereza. If our friend here wanted to be found, I’m sure she would have sought us out already.”

“Oh come now,” Cereza lamented, “You talk like you know her.”

“ _Me_? Know  _her_? Why would I spend my precious time rendezvousing with a mislead vigilante?”

Bayonetta huffed quietly, snatching the remote up from the coffee table and turning the TV off. Ripping a throw from the couch’s headrest, she silently curled under the blanket, side-eyeing Jeanne with the sly disappointment of an offended house cat.

The mood in the apartment sullened a bit, and moments later Jeanne was sure Cereza had lulled off to sleep. Reveling in the peaceful quiet and comfortable sound of Cereza’s soft, rhythmic breathing, the blonde witch began the gargantuan task of grading dozens of backlogged homework papers.

After she was done, she’d soak in the tub a bit, and perhaps invite Cereza to joi-

“A stake out!” Cereza declared suddenly.

Air blew out of Jeanne’s nose quickly; a thin red line streaked haphazardly across Ethan’s paper, the result of Jeanne jumping at Cereza’s abrupt suggestion.

Cereza had twisted on the couch to fully face Jeanne, excitement dancing in her gorgeous blue-gray eyes, and Jeanne felt some of her annoyance wither away.

She didn’t have to inquire to know what Cereza was going on about. She knew her friend. The woman was still bothered by the fact that there possibly existed one more lonely Umbra Witch in the world.

“It would be fun!” Bayonetta insisted in a light tone.

“That’s  _stalking_.”, Jeanne retorted sharply, “Do you enjoy being stalked, Cereza?”

Cereza’s lips twisted ever so slightly before forming an enticingly playful smile. Jeanne felt her heart swell with a suffocating amount of affection and forced her face to remain passive.

“Well...if  _you_  were the one stalking me,” Cereza purred.

“No.”

“Jeanne.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“If you‘d like to do a stake out, say no.”

“N-,  _Cereza_!”

“ _Jeanne_.”

Jeanne sighed pointedly, dropping her pen, and glaring at her friend. Work forgotten, she extracted herself from her seat at the dining table and plopped down on the couch beside Cereza.

In an instant, the other woman was happily curled on top of her, snuggling her face into the crook of Jeanne’s neck. Jeanne relented, resting a warm cheek on top of Cereza’s head. Automatically, her hand moved to rub comforting circles around the other woman’s pleasantly sculpted back.

These were the moments that made her feel like there was more between them. Cereza sighing and pressing her cheeks against Jeanne in an affectionate cuddle, kissing her gently on the top of her head, holding her tightly after a hard day of work. It all felt...so  _loving_.

The affection had even gone so far as to transcend the walls of their adequately sized Brooklyn apartment. Cereza would plaster herself tightly to Jeanne’s side during shopping excursions, eyeing daggers at gawking men (of which Jeanne had no interest in), as though possessively claiming the blonde witch as hers.

Some things were missing. They didn’t kiss in public, or hold hands. And Cereza had never introduced Jeanne as her girlfriend (and vice versa).

It confused Jeanne. Were they just best friends who happened to fuck an awful lot? Were they secret lovers? Were they working through it?

Who fucking knew?

Cereza shifted in Jeanne’s arms, and the younger witch was once again pulled out of her internal reveries.

“Are you alright?” Cereza inquired simply, craning her neck to study the other Umbra woman’s face, “You seem lost.”

“I’m fine,” Jeanne murmured, reaching for the remote that had been tossed aside by Cereza with wanton disregard, “But we are not stalking Cutie J,” she continued, the sound of finality punctuating her tone.

“If you say so,” Cereza agreed quietly, though it sounded more like an ‘agree to disagree,’ response. Sighing contentedly, she rested her head back onto the cool planes of Jeanne’s neck, and Jeanne began quickly flipping through channels.

Inevitably, they landed on the news again, this time live. They had tuned into the middle of a heated discussion. The familiar faces of New York’s most renown anchors were blabbering away excitedly, and it took a few moments for Jeanne’s brain to piece together the topic of their conversation.

“...Spotted in Brooklyn! That makes two,” the more enthusiastic of the afternoon anchors had been in the middle of declaring.

The calmer female anchor smiled politely in response, turning her gaze to the camera. Speaking directly to the audience now, she said, “Well, it looks like Cutie J finally has a partner in crime. Hopefully, this spells a bright future for Brooklyn.”

At this, Jeanne’s eyebrows shot up, while Cereza adjusted her head incrementally to better see the TV.

Sure enough, the news program began to quickly flash through images of what was clearly  _another_  Umbra woman.

“Unbelievable,” Cereza murmured.

The woman in question wore an eerily familiar black and gold Umbran outfit. A mask, typically incorporated into hairsuits, covered the lower half of her face from the nose down. The headpiece crowned about half-a-foot upward from her head in a beehive style, and split at the base of her neck, forming two, long billowing fins.

Jeanne blinked hard a few times. She clearly did not remember acquiring a sidekick, much less one of such stature.

“Her suit looks like my mother’s,” Cereza commented.

“It’s the same style,” Jeanne confirmed. And it was; the only touches of Rosa’s that it lacked were her ornamental butterfly glasses and restrictive belts and chains. Otherwise, it was the spitting image of the now deceased woman, right down to the beehive.

Summoning her phone, Jeanne quickly plugged the phrase “Cutie J sidekick ny,” into her browser’s search bar. Much clearer images of the mystery witch immediately cluttered the page along with articles describing some her first sightings.

Cereza wriggled on top of her until she too was peering at the uncomfortably bright screen of Jeanne’s phone. Disbelieving silence dominated the atmosphere as the women swiped through dozens of photos. 

“Something’s not right,” Jeanne murmured, locking her phone and tossing it onto the coffee table. It wasn’t a definitive feeling; more like an uncomfortable churning in the middle of her chest. It was the same feeling that had proceeded the resurgence of Aesir, and the same feeling she’d gotten right before the forces of Paradiso had assaulted the Umbra Witches’ home. 

Call it a Witch’s intuition. 

“It seems like we’ll be doing that stakeout after all,” Cereza declared smugly, left eyebrow quirking playfully. 

“Seems so.”


	2. Do you remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love is hard.

 

#  **Chapter 2: Do you remember?**

 

_“Let’s go for a run?” It was a suggestion and a question all at once._

_Two women stood rigidly in the halls of one of Vigrid’s most archaic temples. Separated only by the moonlight cast through the windows, they faced each other reluctantly, hiding their emotions in the safety of the sharply contrasting shadows of the temple's stout pillars. Cereza looked up from under her eyebrows, unwilling to meet Jeanne’s cool, piercing gaze._

_Awkward silence hung between the two eighteen year olds, cold like the unforgivingly frigid trickle of a winter stream. The wind picked up, blowing wildly through the halls of the temple and ruffling loose strands of Cereza’s shimmery black hair into vexing tangles._

_Perfectly arranged, Jeanne’s platinum locks remained intact, bound by an expensive, ornamental hair net. Cereza eyes involuntarily raked over the pleasant form of her friend’s body, appraising her not for her shape, but rather for her flashy garnishments._

_Often, the other girl would wear jewelry and brooches that had been gifted to her by wealthy families as a sign of amicability between estates and the Umbra. Lumen “royalty,” benefited from similar praises, and Cereza’s father, Balder, had been presented with comparable endowments before his disgrace in the face of the archaic laws. Even now, Balder retained possession of items that would make laymen drool with envy._

_Tallying the great wealth of Jeanne’s garments alone, a pronounced lump settled in the center of Cereza’s throat. Was she daft? How could she have dared to ask such a foolish question?_

_Surely, her normally mild-mannered friend was boiling with unseen rage and contempt. After all, it had been a very offensive thing for an outcast to request of someone with as much status and importance as Jeanne represented._

_And friendship, time, and experiences meant very little in the long-run of England’s highly politicized culture. The rich rarely married for anything other than money. Cereza had been a fool._

_“Cereza,” Jeanne called lightly. It was a gentle, patient whisper; her eyebrows characteristically pulled down in deep thought as she surveyed her friend’s face, “Someone’s coming.”_

_And surely, the tall, imposing frame of an Umbran priest’s shadow appeared, growing exponentially in size as the woman fast-approached the girl’s location. She moved with a speed that suggested she was aware of their presence in the temple, regardless of if she knew their identities or not._

_“We must go,” Jeanne said, pulling herself through the moon-bathed frame of a temple window and out into Vigrid’s crisp, freezing air, “Hurry!”_

_Without a backwards glance, Cereza heaved herself through the very same window, transforming into an oily colored, opalescent crow and frantically flapping after the russet tinted owl that glided before her._

_They flew for a while, Jeanne reveling in the calm and quiet of the night time air, Cereza toddling along frustrated, still uncomfortable with wings she’d just barely become used to._

_Silently, the red owl dipped below the clouds, and noisily, the black crow followed. Gracefully, Jeanne dove towards the ground, and unceremoniously, Cereza tumbled out of the sky._

_It represented their differences, Cereza thought humorously. Jeanne was beautiful in unimaginable ways; a prodigious princess, a shining white knight, with the thick sort of platinum locks dark-haired witches only wished they’d been born with._

_Cereza was all the opposite and ugly in comparison; she struggled to grasp basic witch concepts and teetered on the edge of society, a dark, unwanted, ignored outcast. She had never been proposed to, nor approached by a man or woman for courting._

_Jeanne, who had always been kind in her own ways, had frequently insisted that Cereza mastered techniques just fine, and that she was, in fact, a beautiful and prodigiously talented witch, but Cereza had been doubting herself recently, and her inability to master something as simple as crow within had only exacerbated her feelings of ineptitude._

_And watching Jeanne now, she could only think of how oh-so infuriatingly foolish she had been!_

_The girls were careening towards a thickly forested area of the Valley. Jeanne made landfall first, clinging to the branches of a thinly leafed coniferous tree. She scrambled into an upright position, frantically maneuvering around uncooperative tree branches to successfully catch Cereza before the other girl had seriously injured herself._

_Cereza, who would have normally indulged in the pleasantly warm contact of their bodies pressed against each other, instead rushed to pry herself from Jeanne’s sturdy arms. Without a spoken word, the girls quietly picked their way down the tree’s trunk, sighing with relief as their toes met browning winter grass._

_They rested at the base of the tree’s trunk, and after a few deep breaths, Jeanne once again asked, “Would you like to go for a run Cereza?”_

_The power of panther within had always been a pleasant source of comfort for Cereza, but now, her only desire was to rest and make amends for whatever ways she had offended her friend._

_“I’m alright,” she responded quietly, sliding to the ground. She rested her back against the trunk of a tree and pulled her knees up to her chin._

_“I was thinking, perhaps, you’d like to talk?” She asked this without looking. She was afraid of what she would see in Jeanne’s stony eyes._

_Silence permeated the air, and Cereza could almost hear Jeanne quietly mulling over her options. Perhaps she would leave Cereza to sulk and run off to practice some of the dark arts._

_“I would like to talk.”_

_Or not._

_With a soft sigh, the blond girl slid into a sitting position beside Cereza. Cereza looked at her coyly, trying her hardest to measure the friction in her friend’s eyes, searching for a hatred she could not find._

_Instead, Jeanne, as usual, seemed very calm. Their eyes touched, and Cereza watched with unbridled interest as the irises in Jeanne’s eyes dilated._

_“I’m sorry,” the dark haired witch stated firmly but quietly, dropping her gaze, “That was rude of me, and I hope I won’t lose your friendship to it.”_

_More silence. This was amounting to a very silent conversation._

_The air shifted minutely, and Jeanne sidled over to Cereza till their shoulders pressed against one another. Dropping her head onto the outcast’s shoulder, she said, “Why are you sorry? It wasn’t rude.” Her voice sounded thick, like she was trying not to cry, and Cereza felt the throat lump of doom return in response._

_Her eyes stung venomously as she stuttered through her explanation, “I understand why you wouldn’t want to marry me. We’ve never even courted each other. And, I’m sure you’ve got many more suitors waiting for you,” she tilted her head upwards, forcing her eyes to swallow salty tears, “Qualified suitors. Men and women you deserve. Not dingy outcasts with nonexistent dowries and three almost laughable outfits.”_

_In a flash, the other women had ripped the warmth of her body away from Cereza’s side. She seemed to be trying to stutter something out, but Cereza could not bring herself to face the rejection in the other woman’s eyes._

_Finally, “Cereza, you, you’re-, you’re **infuriating**.”_

_A bit roughly, she yanked Cereza’s chin up so the two were forced to face one another. Watery eyes met watery eyes, and for a few minutes, they just looked at one another. Eventually, Jeanne’s eyebrows relaxed, and as though exhausted, she sunk into Cereza’s arms; her hair nets pressed uncomfortably against the other girl’s collarbone, but Cereza, perturbed by the moment, refused to move._

_“We can court each other whenever we’d like,” the blonde declared, “Wealth is far from an issue. My dearest mummies can kiss my royal ass for all I care.”_

_Cereza struggled to find words. Marriage, and love, had always been a far-off fantasy for the outcast. Her brain was straining to process Jeanne approval of her proposal._

_The other women looked up from the crook of her neck and reached out a delicate hand to brush away the tears from Cereza’s cheeks._

_“You are infuriating.” She repeated._

_“....”_

_“So, you would accept my proposal?” Cereza murmured tentatively, “Even if I only have 3 tattered outfits to my name.”_

_Jeanne scoffed quietly. “Clothing means nothing.”_

_“Even if...,” she scrambled to articulate herself, “Even when I am the person I am?”_

_“You’re Cereza. Now stop asking silly questions.”_

_She shifted in the dark-haired witch’s arms so that they faced one another, “You are Cereza,” she repeated, “And I promise you, the moment I take the throne, the moment I make the laws, we will get married.”_

_“I promise Cereza, with all my heart.”_

_And then, for the first time in both their 18 year old lives, Jeanne leaned forward and plunged them both down romance’s steep hill with a kiss._

 

*********

 

They were in the apartment’s sprawling garage.

Where most of their neighbors had family sized vehicles, Angle Slayer occupied the single parking space allotted to the women’s apartment room. Jeanne only had one vehicle to her name, and Bayonetta had never bothered to indulge in a car beyond her driver’s license. After all, Enzo, the sly rat, always had a few dozen she could “borrow”.

“Let’s go for a ride?” Jeanne asked, eyebrows raised. It was a suggestion and a question all at once.

Déjá vu struck Bayonetta like the sharp crack of lightning. It was a memory she had remembered before, and one that she often thought of. She stifled the violent blush that threatened to taint her cheeks and simply nodded her approval of Jeanne’s suggestion. Of course. Only teenage memories could bring with them the sort of waves of embarrassment that the normally unblushing Bayonetta had long forgotten.

Noticing, Jeanne’s gaze lingered for a fraction of a moment, her eyebrows characteristically pulling down in deep thought as she surveyed her friend’s face. Turning away, she hopped onto Angle Slayer and motioned for Bayonetta to do the same.

Carefully, Bayonetta settled in and snuggled closely to Jeanne’s back, burying her nose in her friend’s soft, sweet smelling hair. The other women rifled around in the cycle’s small compartment before fishing out a pair of goggles and passing them over to Bayonetta, who scoffed in response.

 “You know we don’t need those.”

“Just offering,” Jeanne stated, before slipping on her own pair of goggles and returning Bayonetta’s back to its compartment. Jeanne always liked to pretend for the sake of normality; in reality, speeds surpassing 100 mph very rarely disturbed either women’s vision. Call it the benefits of being a witch.

Angle Slayer’s engine purred to life, and Bayonetta’s arms snaked around Jeanne mid-section, grasping her tightly and shamefully enjoying the feel of Jeanne’s abdomen under her forearms.

“Where are we going,” Bayonetta inquired.

“It seemed our mysterious Umbra sister was spotted close to my school’s district, so I figure it’d be best if we head there first.” 

“Oh! Maybe we’ll catch wind of Cutie J while we’re there,” Bayonetta teased lightly, eliciting a small, exhausted sigh from her friend. 

“You know Cereza, you act as though _you_ know her.” 

“Didn’t _I_ ask _you_ that very same question this afternoon?” 

Settling her chin on Jeanne’s shoulder, Bayonetta stifled a small grin. Of course she knew who the famed Platinum Knight was. She was grasping onto her waist at this very moment. 

Bayonetta wondered if Jeanne had guessed it yet. That they were just playing a coy game, dancing around Jeanne’s alter ego like jittery fruit flies. Bayonetta was perturbed by her friend’s insistence on preserving the secrecy of her superhero identity. It was quite obvious, and the dark-witch had assumed that her friend would have fessed up about it at some point. 

But she never did, and Bayonetta, being the mischievous creature that she was, had chosen to create a game out of it. Jeanne was wicked smart, and Bayonetta figured there was only so little time left until she would catch on, but in the meanwhile, she enjoyed her game. 

It took mere seconds for Angle Slayer to bolt out the garage and down the road. They traveled in silence, drowned out by the roar of the engine, and Bayonetta, Cutie J forgotten and Jeanne remembered, found herself struggling to sort through her thoughts. 

She loved Jeanne. The moment she had known who she was, the moment she had remembered, she had loved her, deeply and unquestionably. She loved her so much it hurt. 

In the 20 years Bayonetta had absentmindedly dithered away, she had had a handful of romantic adventures that had always felt painfully wrong. Feelings of betrayal had permeated most of her relationships, though betrayal to who had eluded for the worse part of those years. In one fell swoop, Jeanne had both cleared away all of those doubts and brought with her a set of whole new ones.

For one, Bayonetta had slept for 500 years, while Jeanne had lived at least 5 different lifetimes, undoubtedly with partners of her own. 

At times, Bayonetta found her difficult to read. There were days where she seemed to be Jeanne of old, and other days where her personality alluded Bayonetta.

Worst of all, Bayonetta felt sure that Jeanne viewed her in much of the same way. After all, Bayonetta had experienced multiple changes of her own. Jeanne had said as much before Bayonetta’s epic fight with Jubilieus. They weren’t the same people.

And yet, so many things remained the same. Her feelings for Jeanne, her dreams of being together with her romantically (whether or not marriage was involved), fucking every day, and maybe one day even having their own little family. It was the sort of desperate, instinctive yearn one had when they had truly found a partner who they deeply loved. And yet, they rarely spoke of the proposal, nor the fact that the two were quite aware of their previous 15th century romantic tryst.

Bayonetta smiled into Jeanne’s shoulder wistfully. Back then, it had been so normal to offer proposals for marriage, even in the absence of love. It hadn’t at all been unusual for one to secure their future before engaging in an actual relationship. And the age; 14-18 had been a perfectly reasonable age to seek out an acceptable partner for marriage. 

Today, reasonably, none of that would fly, at least not in the sanity of the modern world. Now it was normal to seek love before marriage, and, Bayonetta thought, much better.

Of course, back then teenage Cereza had proposed because of her already existing feelings for Jeanne. And maybe, teenage Jeanne had accepted because of her already existing feelings for Cereza.

But, things had changed now. For instance, it was no longer just Cereza and Jeanne; Bayonetta and Cutie J existed too. They were still learning about each other’s new quirks and personality additions, though their previous relationship had made a great base to start with. After all, plenty of things had remained the same, which delighted Bayonetta. It meant that a great chunk of their previous relationship still existed and thrived.

But it wasn’t enough to just declare feelings of love. It wasn’t enough to be sure that the same love existed between the two of them. What if Jeanne wanted other things? What if Bayonetta admitted her feeling and Jeanne felt forced into a relationship? 

She didn’t want to ruin what they had now. She would rather live an eternal life of romantic torment than lose Jeanne altogether.

At this thought, her arms unconsciously flexed around Jeanne’s waist, pulling the other woman closer into her embrace. Jeanne shifted slightly.

“A little tight there, Cereza!” She shouted over her shoulder, struggling to contend with Angle Slayer’s noisy engine.

“Sorry. Just feeling a bit anxious is all,” Bayonetta called back. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

At this, the cycle began to gradually slow until they had halted in an empty side street.

 

*********

 

Jeanne plucked the key from Angle Slayer’s ignition and leaned back. Perverse as it was, she enjoyed the feeling of Cereza’s breasts pressing into her back; they were soft and Cereza’s body was a pleasant and warm contrast to the whip of wind that had battered her while they traveled.

“Why are we stopping Jeanne? Isn’t the school a block or two away from here?” She was right, of course. But the walking distance was bearable, and the early summer air tolerable. It reminded Jeanne that school would be closing for the summer soon, and she would have 3 whole months to devote to time with her friend.

“Are you alright?” She asked the dark-haired witch behind her. They had remained on the cycle, Jeanne still caught tightly in Bayonetta vice grip.

It was...unusual for Cereza to admit to anxiety, or fear for that matter. The old Cereza, the younger one, might have readily done so, but this Cereza had learned to hide her emotions well. 

Jeanne had not seen her cry since her reawakening until Fimbulventr; even before that, when they had first been reunited as friends, the previously amnesiac woman had not shed a tear. Following suit, Jeanne had refused to cry herself.

Instead, she had saved it for home, and become a bawling mess of rejection. The fact that Cereza had barely seemed impacted by their reunion had destroyed her. But, as time had passed, the dark-witch had shown her glee in other ways, and now Jeanne was sure Bayonetta was as glad as Jeanne to have rediscovered their friendship. 

After all, she had almost caught her crying in Inferno. She had felt the salty tears drip onto her ethereally purple abdomen while Cereza had suppressed sobs for her friend, thinking Jeanne had died.

Embarrassed to be caught crying, the former Left-Eye had leapt to her feet and looked away, but Jeanne had already seen it.

It had made her unbelievably happy to know Cereza cared so deeply for her, though she refused to exacerbate Cereza’s embarrassment by pointing it out.

Now, however, the blonde witch was faced with the fact that Cereza had done something she hadn’t done before her long nap; admitted she felt something other than happiness and anger.

Jeanne hoped it represented an advancement in their relationship or a gradual return to some semblance of normalcy. Perhaps Cereza would start confiding in her more, like she had done when they were teenagers and courting one another.

“I’m fine.”

Or perhaps she wouldn’t.

“Alright. Well, why don’t we walk the rest of the way there?”

“Walk? Or _run_?”

“ _Walk_. You really should exercise your human legs more often Cereza,” Jeanne teased, then yelped in surprise as Cereza lightly pinched her rear.

“Cereza!”

The other woman chortled softly for a moment before leaning in to lightly brush her lips against Jeanne’s ear, “You _can’t_ tell me I don’t exercise enough Jeanne. We’ve worked out together every other night since the start of the month.”

Jeanne felt a shiver run down her spine; Cereza’s fingers had started tiptoeing a hot trail down her abdomen.

“Cereza....”

“You say my name an awful lot,” she teased softly. Her fingers kept edging dangerously lower, and Jeanne found herself, for the first time in her life, entertaining the thought of public sex in Brooklyn’s dark, empty back streets.

Wait.

“Cereza!” She snapped firmly, swatting her friend’s hand away, albeit gently, “This is not the time, nor the place.”

Without looking, Jeanne could feel Cereza’s smirk. The infuriating tease placed a soft, sweet kiss on the edge of Jeanne’s ear lobe before dismounting the bike. Jeanne followed suit, dismissing Angle Slayer back through the void of Paradiso.

They walked in silence towards the school. There was no rush. Perhaps their Rosa-look alike would be there, and perhaps she would be gone. It had been hours since her last sighting, and Jeanne remained reasonably pessimistic about finding her. 

“Did you ever think about having children in those 500 years, Jeanne?”

It was a random question, and Jeanne found herself momentarily taken aback. She searched for the correct words before carefully answering.

“Well, sometimes. But there was no one to have them with. There were no Umbran woman left, and as you know, I prefer the finer sex. Laying with mortals who would eventually pass away seemed like an awful idea. And...I could never quite bring myself to develop feelings for anyone,” she replied, purposefully omitting the ‘else’ that should have ended her explanation, “It was quite sad and lonely, really.”

While the truth sounded harsh and depressing, Jeanne had long since gotten over it. And yet, to her surprise, Cereza slipped a warm, comforting hand in hers. Glancing at her friend, she could see words forming on the tip of her tongue. Her perfectly crafted eyebrows furrowed as she struggled to find the right words to comfort Jeanne with.

In the end, they reached the school in silence, though her hand never left Jeanne’s. It was an uncharacteristic move on _Bayonetta’s_ part, but an extremely characteristic action of the _Cereza_ Jeanne knew. 

It made her happy.

 

*********

 

A pleasant summer wind blew atop the roof of the school. A dark witch prowled its edges, surveying the courtyard below with morbid interest.

Desperately, she racked her brain for the last things she remembered. Her head pounded, but slowly, memories trickled back. She remembered feeling the sharp pain of the card slicing through her chest. She remembered seeing the crestfallen face of her glowing beloved. She remembered, just faintly, hearing the desperate voice her sweet, dear daughter.

But she didn’t remember being sucked into the fiery pits of Inferno. She didn’t remember being held to her testy contract with Madama Khepri. Instead, all she knew was she had woken up here, in this world, confused and exhausted. A definitive scar punctuated her skin where the card had cut, reaffirming her memories. But all signs of Vigrid as she had known it were gone. Instead, she had woken up in an alien town with foreign objects. And Madama Khepri remained oddly withholding about her whereabouts.

The world looked startling different from how she had remembered it; stone smoother than limestone and brick paved the roads, and tarry black asphalt seemed to carve central paths out for heavy, wheeled machines.

The courtyard she overlooked was painted with an array of yellow and white lines, and a tall pole with a net stood at its very edge. It was surrounded by wired fencing, and altogether struck the witch as a prison.

She watched with increased inquisitiveness as two, tall, lean women manifested from the shadows of a side road. They walked closely together, hand in hand, and approached the fencing with unconcerned disregard. At its base, they let go of one another and began speaking to each other; they seemed oddly familiar, and the dark-witch leaned in as though trying to hear them from many feet away.

They seemed smitten with one another in a coy, avoidant sort of way. They smiled, they teased, and they flirted, but occasionally, their eyes refused to touch. It was endearing in a familiar sort of way, like she had watched it happen before.

The short haired woman motioned widely with her arms, waving at the fence with a broad grin; the long haired woman rolled her eyes pointedly, flourishing her hand in a way that said “go ahead.”

The other woman laughed and quickly began scaling the fence. Inhumanely fast. That was the first thing that piqued the witch’s attention. The second thing was the second woman sighing theatrically and back flipping over a fence that a normal person would have otherwise been unable too.

Perhaps she was off her game and hadn’t noticed before. But looking carefully, she could now pick apart details of the Umbran uniform on the black haired woman’s garments. These were witches.

Confident in her power and desperate for answers, she leapt to their location, landing mere inches away from the black-haired witch. Raising her gun, she pointed it to the woman’s face, and with the sort of sometimes troublemaking confidence her daughter had inherited from her, she said, in her commanding, powerful voice, “Where are we?”

In hindsight, that was stupid, she thought. Had her head pounded less, she would have surveyed the situation before her with careful regard. Instead, she had leapt into danger. But no matter; not even the most powerful Umbra bindings had been able to suppress her power.

Holding Unforgiven more rigidly, she demanded, “Well?”

There was something about the black haired witch, who seemed to stand shocked before her, that looked so familiar. As though she had just seen her. Again, she thought hard, and wished fervently for her headache to subside.

And then.

“Mummy?”

Memories flooded back to her like an unbridled waterfall.

Watching Balder, tall and handsome, disgraced and exiled simply for loving her.

Crying as they jailed her, only taking solace in the fact that would allow her to nurse and care for her little one before the point at which she could learn the dark arts.

A tiny hand, connected to the smallest, sweetest thing she had ever held, cooing up at her with big round eyes, and a tiny ‘o’ shaped mouth, asking to be breastfeed with little cries.

A four year old, toddling unsurely through the prison, toting flowers and Cheshire with her.  

An excited teenager, sharing details of her first kiss, and her daring proposal.

An adult woman, the spitting image of Rosa, staring back at her with confusion and love in her eyes, watching as they were separated just mere moments before Rosa’s supposed death.

She remembered who she was. As though blocked by unseen forces, the headache subsided, reduced to a slight throbbing at the back of Rosa’s brain. Recognizing it as a magically induced amnesia, the woman realized whatever experiences had gotten her here had tried to suppress her memories and failed miserably.

And this woman. Rosa's gun dropped languidly to her side, and then disappeared altogether. For a heartbeat, she drank in the sight of her proudest creation before lifting her hands to cup the woman's face endearingly. Her thumb stroked he cheek, and in return, Rosa saw her own smile reflected back at her as the witch hesitantly welcomed the touch.

“Cereza.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But also, love is totally easy.
> 
> Longer chapter. They'll probably fluctuate with my availability. I very much hope you all like it!


	3. Embrace

# Embrace

 **Notes** : I am still getting comfortable with what ‘style,’ I would like to write this fic in. If you’ve noticed slightly changes to the wording and characterization of the characters, I apologize profusely. If abrupt breaks between sections feel jarring, I apologize profusely again. Please bear with me as I get accustomed to writing this fic.

**VERY VERY IMPORTANT THINGS:**

  * I’ve redacted the idea that the girls have never said “I love you,” before. Proposing at 18 gives them 2 years before the Witch Hunts, more than enough time to say the big L. So it wouldn’t make sense that they had never said it as teenagers. Additionally, it doesn’t change much about the story; they would have said it during their teenage years in a different era, and it’s been 500 years since then, so it makes sense they wouldn’t be sure of being in love anymore, especially considering Bayo’s memory issues.
  * The first chapter will be edited to incorporate those changes.



**Side note** : I misspelled every occurrence of “Angel Slayer,” in the previous chapter. Every instance of its occurrence is as “Angle Slayer”. I think it’s hilarious, so I’m not going to change it!

 **Side, side note:** I’d love to write chapters faster, but unfortunately I’m in a difficult position right now where I can’t. My life had been very up and down over the last two months, and I don’t have as much time to myself as I’d like. I hope everyone understands.

## VIGRID, 15TH CENTURY

_It was a wonderful day. The month of May was winding down, ushering in the pleasant winds of Vigrid’s cool summers. The vibrant green strands of grass that filled Sunrise Valley swayed peacefully in the breeze. Rosa, tucked away in an alcove of trees, lay spread eagle on the dewy morning grass, naked and free._

_Sitting up, she prodded the lower half of her abdomen reproachfully. Morning sickness was awful. It baffled her how something so small could be the cause of such a violent reaction._

_Mere feet away, Balder sat, dignified, and unfortunately, clothed. He was polishing his spear, deep in thought and oblivious to the world around them. Taking advantage of his focus, Rosa appraised his delicate, but somehow sharp, features. He was quite androgynous, she decided, but gender and looks had never really mattered much to the Umbra Witch. Be it woman or man, Rosa loved all._

_“You’re very handsome, you know.”_

_Balder glanced up from under sun-bleached eyelashes; the edges of his lips upturned ever so slightly._

_“You jest.”_

_“You’re right,” she drawled, reclining back into the cool grass, “We’re an awfully ugly pair of human beings. I take it back.”_

_“No. You’re beautiful. Any man would be lucky to have you.”_

_“Then take me,” Rosa responded dramatically, rolling over till she had bumped into the side of his long, muscular leg._

_“Come now. That’s how we got where we are today.”_

_“You mean that’s how I got pregnant,” Rosa teased, lifting an arm to run her hand through Balder’s short, blonde hair. “It was an excellent night though, wasn’t it?”_

_Dismissing his spear, the blonde sage laid recumbent beside his wife. Lightly, Rosa began to trace the lines of his face. She caressed his powdered eyelids, stroked his long nose. She followed along the acute contours of his sharp jawline, leaning over to plant a kiss below his earlobe. Her fingers ventured across his mouth, only stopping to tug on the tepid skin at the center of his lower lip._

_“I changed my mind. You are very handsome. I hope our little one takes after you.”_

_“I certainly hope not. Unless we want our child to have dreadfully pale skin. I believe I’ve frightened someone at least once every day since my birth.”_

_“Yes, you are very ghostly. That’s odd, you know. For someone who spends so much time in the sun.”_

_“Maybe I should join the Umbra.”_

_“If only. Then maybe this little one would have a chance at a normal life,” she whispered. The effect of her words was immediate, and the mood dulled. Sidling closer, Balder wedged his arms under and around her, pulling the forlorn woman into a tight embrace._

## THE PRESENT, MAY 2019

### Chapter 3.1: Bayonetta

Bayonetta fumbled with her keys before plugging the right one into the lock and pushing the door open. Three women tumbled into the small foyer, tripping over an assortment of shoes and Jeanne’s clothes in the process.

Behind her, Bayonetta could hear her friend cussing and tumbling over her own discarded clothing as she patted the wall in search of the light switch.

Blindingly white light filled the room, illuminating what appeared to be a jungle of dirty red clothes and plush white blankets. Why hadn’t they cleaned the apartment before leaving? Everything from red panties to, also red, bras, to pants, and shoes (again, of the color red) littered the floor in a frenzied, haphazard mess. It looked like a sex dungeon that had been converted into a modern art exhibit.

The thought made Bayonetta blush for the second time in a single day. Her mother was right there, casting a suspicious gaze over the incriminating evidence of the girls’ licentious sex life. If ‘licentious sex life,’ referred to the abandoned remains of Jeanne’s drunken Friday night stupor.

“It’s a mess,” Bayonetta explained with a sheepish grin as Jeanne, silent and red faced, slid past her to snatch up thongs and tops, “Jeanne’s an exhibitionist.”

“Cereza!” Jeanne hissed, snapping around to gaze daggers in Bayonetta’s direction.

“I’m joking,” she said, raising her hands deferentially as she weighed the pros and cons of getting her ass whooped by a furious Jeanne, “You are very normal.”

“There’s nothing wrong with abnormal,” Rosa weighed in, her words tapering off as she scanned her daughter’s living room.

“It’s very sweet and cozy,” she observed out loud.

“It’s home,” Bayonetta beamed, pleased with her mother’s assessment.

“What is that?” Rosa inquired, chin jutting out in the direction of the girls’ massive television. Bayonetta’s jaw slackened for a moment; she had completely forgotten that Rosa came from another time altogether and was ignorant of the technologies of the modern world. Seizing the remote from its normal resting place on the coffee table, she prodded the fickle ‘on,’ button until their 70” beast flickered to life.

“It’s called a TV,” she explained, “people record and create things on other devices that can then be showed on them. They’re quite the source of entertainment.”

Foraging around in the pockets of her suit, she retrieved her phone, “Like these little devices. They’re called phones. They can do the same things as TVs and so much more.”

Handing off the smartphone to her mother, she watched with affection as Rosa fumbled with the smooth touch screen, opening about a dozen apps in one go.

It took merely five minutes of blind exploration for the older witch to grasp the phone’s basic layout and function. Those were benefits of being 27 forever.

“Are you hungry, Rosa?” Jeanne called from the hall, having successfully dumped the majority of her stranded clothing into the hamper to be washed.

“Not particularly,” she responded, still mesmerized by Bayonetta’s phone. She had successfully navigated to photos, and had taken to lazily sifting through Bayonetta’s selfies and zooming in on her daughter’s face in absentminded observation. Bayonetta praised herself for storing the majority of her nudes elsewhere.

“Are you sure?” Jeanne queried, reuniting with the other two women in the living room.

“Please. It’s late. You girls don’t need to worry about me.”

“It’s not a hassle,” Jeanne declared, slipping past the women and into the kitchen. Bayonetta and Rosa ambled after her, settling down just before the kitchen, at the dining room table.

“What’s all of this,” Rosa inquired, carefully moving piles of papers and pens to the center of the table.

“Jeanne’s job. She educates teenagers. Those are their papers.”

Peeking past the doorway, Bayonetta could see her friend rushing to prepare tea and rummaging through the fridge for respectable leftovers.

“She doesn’t have to, you know.” Rosa hummed under her breath. The mask and hat that covered her face retracted into her suit, exposing her lush, black hair, and full, red lips. She reclined into her seat and crossed her legs, politely appraising the rest of the women’s messy apartment.

Bayonetta’s brief pang of shame vanished as she studied the contours of her mother’s face. Her eyes searched with unrestrained curiosity, noting every evident similarity. Eyes like hers glanced up from under long, curling eyelashes. A nose like hers crinkled as the foreign scent of New York City’s mingled cuisine wafted in through the windows. Even Rosa’s eyebrows, raised and alert now, bore a striking resemblance to Bayonetta’s.

The only conspicuous difference between the two women’s faces lay in their lips; while Bayonetta certainly had full lips, if possible, her mother’s were fuller and lacked a pronounced cupid’s bow.

Catching her gaze, Rosa smiled warmly, “Something wrong, little one?”

“Little one?” Bayonetta chortled, adjusting in her seat to mimic her mother’s posture, “I hardly think I’m very small anymore.”

“Nonsense. You’ll always be my little one,” Rosa hummed, casting an affectionate gaze in her daughter’s direction, “That hairstyle suits you.”

“Thanks mummy...I had it like yours before. But when Jeanne and I reunited, she had her hair short, and it inspired me.”

“...Reunited?”

This was a can of worms Bayonetta had not been prepared to deliver. Reaching out for Jeanne’s red grading pen, she toiled with it absentmindedly as she tried to muster the courage to break her mother’s heart.

“A few months ago, Loptr, the evil half of a god named Aesir, attempted to destroy the world as we know it. He wanted the eyes for himself, and in order to accomplish this, went back in time to murder you and retrieve Balder,” Glancing up from under her eyebrows, the younger witch gauged her mother with watchful eyes.

“Go on,” Rosa encouraged. Her impassive face lit warmly as the woman shared a reassuring smile with her daughter.

Underneath the warmth, Bayonetta could see the slight kink of her mother’s eyebrows, the tightness around the edges of her beautiful eyes. She was restraining worry and stress under a farce of confidence and love.

“Balder and I defeated Loptr, but Balder absorbed his malice and was sent back to the past, just after the Witch Hunts and your supposed death. At that time, Jeanne had put me into a slumber that lasted 500 years, and hidden me at the bottom of a lake. Daddy spent those years searching for me, influenced heavily by Loptr’s evil intent...I woke up with amnesia and spent 20 years trying to rediscover myself, which was when I started calling myself Bayonetta. In that time, Balder found and mentally broke Jeanne and searched me out with the intent of taking my left eye to resurrect Jubileus and destroy the world. In order to reawaken my memories, he brought my child self back from the past and allowed me to piece together what came to me. In the end, Jeanne broke his grasp and we reunited to face him. I…”

Bayonetta’s eyes dropped to her lap. Fiddling with her fingers, she searched for the words that would shatter her mother’s heart.

“You killed him?” Rosa suggested. Bayonetta nodded mutely.

“I faced Loptr after all of that had passed.”

“Well,” the other woman said, sighing and reclining, “that’s quite the time loop. And your eye? What’s happened to it?”

“Gone. Currently, the right and left eyes no longer exist.”

“I see.”

A heavy silence fell over the pair of women. Rosa stared out the window, avoiding Bayonetta’s searching gaze. Alarmed, the younger witch wondered if her mother resented her. Balder had been the love of Rosa’s life after all.

It was a stupid thought considering the depth of the women’s bond, but Bayonetta had difficulty quashing it. The fear was only exacerbated by the fact that Rosa now seemed determined to ignore her existence.

Her eyes burned. Crying. Bayonetta did not cry in front of others anymore. She had refused to cry in front of Jeanne. She refused to cry in front of anyone.

Pursing her lips, she turned away from her mother to face the same window. She could still hear Jeanne clanging about in the kitchen, no doubt preparing something more appropriate for them to dine on. She wished she would hurry up. She needed her.

“Cereza.”

“Yes, mummy?”

“What’s wrong?”

The clanging in the kitchen stopped. Jeanne was listening.

“Nothing.”

“You’re crying.”

The clanging in the kitchen picked up at a furious pace. Jeanne didn’t want Bayonetta to know she was listening.

“I’m not crying, I’m just tired.”

“Well, no, you’re not quite crying yet, but you certainly want to cry.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know what you look like when you want to cry, Cereza. In twenty years I’ve seen that face endless times.”

“Mummy, please, I’d rather not.”

In the blink of an eye, Rosa had migrated to the seat beside her daughter. Warm fingers tugged lightly on Bayonetta’s chin, forcing her to look up. Salty tears threatened to spill over her waterline, and she blinked furiously in an attempt to swallow them back into her body.

Worry saturated Rosa’s own frantic eyes as searched her daughter’s face. Her soft thumb caressed Bayonetta’s cheek.

“Little one…”

“I’m alright.”

“You’re obviously not.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Killing Balder.”

“Cereza...” Muted shock infused Rosa’s voice and her warm touch dropped abruptly from Bayonetta’s face.

They stared in silence for a heartbeat. And then, the confusion in Rosa’s eyes melted away, replaced with the same loving look Bayonetta had recognized when sent to the past.

“Little one,” Rosa crooned. Her arms wrapped around Bayonetta’s waist, pulling her closer and resting the smooth, lukewarm skin of her chin on top of Bayonetta’s head.

“My little one,” she murmured, voice thick with emotion, “I love you. I love you so much. That is not your fault. You understand?”

Bayonetta nodded, burying her face in the crook of her mother’s neck. The last time Rosa had held her like this had been at the tender age of 3, before the Elder’s had separated them. But Bayonetta couldn’t remember that far back, and to be held tightly in the warm, reassuring embrace of her mother’s sturdy arms made her feel small and protected again.

“As long as I have you I will always have a piece of your father with me.”

Dabbing the edge of Bayonetta’s eyes with a gloved hand, she kissed the top of her daughter’s head.

“Before your birth, I was hoping you’d look like him. That didn’t work out very much, did it?”

“Not at all.”

 

### Chapter 3.2: Rosa

Dinner finished and dishes washed, the women had migrated to the living room to relax and unwind. Jeanne and Cereza had cracked open various windows and a pleasant breeze flowed through the apartment. Three glasses of expensive wine sat idly on the coffee table.

Jeanne had melted into a red armchair, while Rosa had testily settled onto the much broader couch. Cereza had elected to lounge near Rosa’s legs on the living room’s plush rug, plucking absentmindedly at stray strands of polyester.

She was so much Rosa, and so little anyone else. Rosa had felt almost dishonest saying she’d always have a piece of Balder so long as she had Cereza. How her body had decided to replicate itself eluded her.

Hesitantly, she reached out a hand to brush through her daughter’s hair. In response, Cereza rested her head on Rosa’s knees.

“So what you’re saying is you have no recollection of how you ended up in New York?” Jeanne inquired, chin resting languidly on her clasped hands.

“As I said on our way here, I don’t remember anything beyond being pierced in the heart,” Rosa’s hand subconsciously brushed against the location of the jagged scar that lay beneath her clothing. Even now, the phantom pains of a wound long healed plagued her.

Under normal circumstances, witches and sages rarely scarred. Healing occurred at an accelerated rate, and even deep gashes left no traces. The fact that this wound had scarred spoke volumes about Loptr’s magical prowess.

“What’s our plan of action?” Cereza asked, throwing a wondering glance in Jeanne’s direction. Rosa watched their interaction carefully. To Rosa’s knowledge (and with her blessing) 500 years ago, they had been secretly engaged.

Presently, it was quite obvious that neither had married. Perhaps things had fallen through? Odd, considering the unconscious and conscious affection the two seemed to have for each other.

“I was thinking we hit the library tomorrow,” Jeanne responded, reaching for a glass of untouched wine. She swirled it lazily, dipping just the tip of a perfectly manicured finger into its rich red surface.

“The one in Manhattan, on 5th ave. It’s the third largest in the world, so I figure it should have something useful inside.”

“It’s also gorgeous,” Cereza added, “You’d like it mummy. I used to borrow books from there when Enzo and I were still trying to uncover my past.”

“You can read?” Jeanne gasped, sardonic.

“You’re awful,” Cereza retorted, rolling her eyes theatrically.

“I’m not. Either way, I believe we should be focusing on what repercussions Aesir’s tamperings with the eyes might have had on the world and on time.”

“And you can get to learn New York, mummy,” Cereza gloated, crawling onto the couch next to Rosa and brandishing the small, glowing rectangle she referred to as a “phone,” in her mother’s face, “That’s Starbucks. There’s one on every corner of Manhattan, which is where we’re going to tomorrow. They enchant their drinks so their customers become brainwashed into purchasing from them every morning.”

“And why hasn’t anyone stopped them?” Rosa asked, bemused.

“Cereza,” Jeanne chastised.

“What?”

Pleasantly surprised by how similar her daughter sounded to her, Rosa could see Cereza feigning innocence. The two younger witches exchanged challenging looks before her daughter relented.

“I’m not being serious, mummy.”

“Little one,” Rosa snorted, “Please don’t confuse your mother beyond her current state of confusion.”

Cereza offered a sheepish, somewhat mischievous sorry, before, much to Rosa’s elation, snuggling into her side. She scrolled through her phone, frequently sharing things with Rosa that the older witch just barely understood, if at all.

But the joy. The joy on her little one’s face as she attempted to explain away what laptops, and planes, and microwaves were, the joy when Rosa reacted enthusiastically, the joy when her mother laughed, smiled, or stroked her hair, was enough for Rosa to listen forever.

They talked well into the night, about everything and nothing. Rosa got to know people by the name of Rodin, Enzo, and Luka. She heard of the ungodly and awful heists her little one had committed, but laughed because it was the reaction Cereza wanted. They talked about her surprisingly human hopes and dreams, and the desire to soon visit a place called “Cancun”.

Hours later, it was only Jeanne’s soft snoring that alerted either women to the passage of time. The platinum haired witch, slouched uncomfortably in the armchair, had fallen asleep slack jawed with her phone still sturdily held upright in her hands.

“Oh my,” Cereza murmured, checking the time on her phone, “You should rest mummy. Otherwise we’ll be exhausted tomorrow.”

Rosa stretched out grandly, making sure to ruffle her daughter’s short, soft hair in the process.

“I always thought Jeanne had more energy than you,” Rosa admitted, observing Jeanne’s posture with amusement.

“She does. But she works. A lot. I wish she’d ease up on herself a bit.”

“Well, she was always a hard working girl.”

“She still is,” Cereza agreed simply, standing up from the couch and stretching, “Come mummy. We don’t have a spare, so you can get cleaned up and sleep with me in my room. And,” her gaze strayed to Jeanne, “I’ll take care of her.”

 

### Chapter 3.3: Jeanne

Jeanne was having a wonderful dream. Cereza had proposed again. The ring was subtle, beautiful, and yet extravagant all at once. It was the exact kind of wonderful ring Cereza would have thought to given her.

Rodin officiated the wedding. Dark and handsome he wore a glistening gold suit, and a suave black tie. Over the top, and not at all tasteful, but very much Rodin.

The wedding was on a remote island, somewhere off the coast of Hawaii. They were exchanging vows in the middle of a thickly forested jungle, surrounded by leopards and wolves. A select few people were there, including Enzo, Luka, and even Rosa.

“We don’t believe in god in this house,” Rodin was declaring smugly, “So I’ve got to ask Bayonetta. Do you take this woman to be your unlawfully wedded wife, to fuck with forever, and slay angels till the end of time?”

Cereza was brilliant. Her dress, a form fitting mermaid that billowed out at the bottom, glowed blindingly in the sunlight. A thin tiara lay on her short black hair, twinkling happily, as though excited to grace the woman’s head. Her cherry colored lips, delectable and enticing, moved in slow motion, and Jeanne waited with excitement to hear a confirmation she longed for.

“Jeanne. Wake up.”

Jeanne gasped to life, violently dropping her phone in the process. Pulling herself into a more comfortable upright position, she rubbed her strained neck. Cereza crouched by her knees, grinning at her with stifled amusement.

“Are you alright?”

“Fuck, Cereza. I was having a wonderful dream.”

“I could tell,” she said, picking up Jeanne’s phone and handing it back to the drowsy witch, “You were smiling quite peacefully.”

Jeanne sighed, “Why didn’t you let me sleep?”

“You’re resting in an awful position. Besides, we both know beds are more comfortable.”

“Where’s Rosa?” Jeanne questioned.

“Showering. She’ll sleep in my room. Want me to carry you?”

“To my bed?”

“No!” Cereza scoffed, “To the bathroom. To cleanup all that makeup. And bathe.”

“I don’t care about the makeup you know.”

“If I gave you a chance every time you were tired, you’d not care about anything hygiene related, which isn’t healthy, mind you. Come on. I’ll help you.”

Lazily, the women made their way to the master bathroom. The master was Jeanne’s and Jeanne’s alone. Had things been different, the two women would have likely slept here together. And they did, on nights of passionate fucking.

But, the current solution to their living situation involved Cereza having a whole other room, the one small guest room Jeanne had converted for her on her insistence. And so, they spent nights apart, like friends, or worse yet, roommates.

“I heard you had a heart to heart with your mother,” Jeanne probed.

“Those sweet potato fries were exquisite, Jeanne.”

Changing the topic was Cereza’s way of ending the conversation. Reserved and piqued now, she stalked around Jeanne’s master bathroom, hunting for makeup remover and face moisturizer.

“Thanks,” Jeanne murmured, accepting the clipped praise dryly, “It was a recipe I plagiarized from pinterest.”

There was something aggravated about the way the woman in front of her prowled around the room. Her hands rummaged through Jeanne’s possessions angrily; a pronounced crick formed in the space between her eyebrows.

“You know Jeanne, it’s amazing you manage to find anything in this bathroom. I’m starting to understand why you don’t willfully remove your own makeup.”

Wrenching a half-used tub of vaseline from one of Jeanne’s disorganized shelves, she crouched in front of her friend and began slathering the grease in broad strokes across Jeanne’s face. A few dabs of vaseline and one wet wad of paper towel later, and Jeanne found herself the victim of Cereza’s zealous wiping.

“A bit heavy handed, there,” Jeanne cautioned, lifting a hand to brush against the soft inner skin of her friend’s slender arm.

“Sorry,” the raven-haired witch grumbled, easing her touch.

“Is something wrong?”

“I wished you hadn’t listened to our conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeanne amended honestly, regretting her earlier probing.

Cereza’s shoulders sagged; she looked more haggard than Jeanne had anticipated. The day’s events had worn on her mentally.

“It’s not your fault you have superb hearing.”

“No, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You said it because you’re worried. You’re always worried about me,” a mischievous grin flashed across her face, “even though you’re the little one.”

“I beg your pardon? I’m one month younger than you,” Jeanne bristled.

“And 30 days dumber.”

“I beg to differ.”

“You beg for a lot.”

“Cereza.”

“What?”

“You’re mother has ‘superb’ hearing, too.”

“It’s not my mind that’s in the gutter.”

“Oh, it very much is.”

“I beg to differ,” she echoed, gently wiping the last bits of red lipstick from Jeanne’s face. Her eyes drifted to Jeanne’s puckered lips, losing themselves in the shape of her mouth. Jeanne could see the insatiable hunger floating on the surface of her friend’s eyes.

“Remember, Rosa,” Jeanne warned, peeling her red pants off.

“Talking about my mummy while stripping is an ingenious way to kill the mood.”

“That’s the goal.” Jeanne quipped, shrugging out of her top and dumping her clothes into the small hamper across the room.

“Do you want me to bathe you too?” Cereza suggested, filling the tub unprompted. A warm cloud of mist floated up from its surface, and the room quickly fogged.

Jeanne was stark naked now, sitting on the edge of the tub, dipping her toes into the mellow heat of the water. In the next room over, the shower stuttered to life, curtain rings scraping discordantly against the rod as Rosa navigated the modern world’s bathroom hazards.

“How does she feel about showering,” Jeanne asked, finally sinking into the bubbling water.

“She doesn’t see the point.” Cereza admitted, resting her a lean arm along the rim of the tub, “But wasn’t that how it was back then?”

Jeanne nodded, cringing at ancient, buried memories. “We barely bathed more than a week when we were young.”

“That was awful,” Cereza grimaced, “The world’s come far.”

“We had sex without showering,” Jeanne scowled, causing Cereza to heave ever so slightly.

“God bless modernity,” Cereza praised, raising her arms in a derisive imitation of religious fanaticism.

Her dismissive attitude was well-earned. God-killers need not fear the wrath of the heavens.

Out of the corner of her eyes, the white-haired witch greedily drunk in her friend’s exquisite profile. Cereza was, simply put, gorgeous.

“Join me,” Jeanne murmured, tugging on the velvety skin of Cereza’s arm.

“Change your mind?” Cereza purred, pupils dilating.

“Nothing sexual,” Jeanne stipulated.

“Alright.”

Jeanne watched with enraptured fascination as Cereza undressed. Her hair, a silky, ink black in color, slithered off her skin in tresses like black ropes, receding to the back of Cereza’s neat haircut to reveal her supple breasts and perky rear.

“Make room O’ illusterous princess,” she teased, submerging herself in the tub. Jeanne couldn’t help it; a muted snicker slipped from between her lips. Cereza’s eyes brightened, and a captivating smile lit her face.

They held each other’s gaze for what felt like hours, speaking a silent language only they knew, grinning like lovestruck fools too frightened to admit their feelings.

Jeanne was the first to break the silence. She scuttled from her end of the tub to Cereza’s, leaning in to confirm Cereza’s desire. Cereza closed the space between them with a hot, passionate kiss. Her lips roved along the side of Jeanne’s jawline, nipping playfully every so often.

Beneath the water, Jeanne’s legs had awkwardly weaved into Cereza’s, and their arms roamed each other’s bodies exploratorily. She had done this so many times. Cereza’s body was hers, as hers was Cereza’s.

Her hand grazed up the side of Cereza’s abdomen, reveling in the feel of her taut muscles. They trailed towards her breast, while Cereza’s mouth greedily worked along the lean side of Jeanne’s neck.

Cereza’s hand slid down Jeanne’s abdomen, painfully slow. She massaged circles into the soft skin of Jeanne’s inner thigh, teasing her with strokes that brushed suggestively against the heat between Jeanne’s legs.

“Tease,” Jeanne growled, wishing Cereza would take the plunge. They only had so little time.

The curtain hooks screeched again. Rosa grumbled, while the battering echo of the shower fainted away. Something about the grumpy huff that floated to the girls’ bathroom suggested Rosa’s “superb,” hearing, was in fact, very superb.

Jeanne squeezed her eyes shut. Wrong. This was so wrong. Underneath her, cramped against the edge of the tub, Cereza had frozen. Her face had turned a violent shade of red.

“Jeanne, let’s not,” she whispered, wriggling with embarrassment under Jeanne. In all the squirming, her hip stroked Jeanne’s heat, and she choked back a moan, resting a hand on Cereza’s stomach to still her.

They sank into each other’s embrace, breathing deeply to calm their racing hearts. Cereza snatched a pleasant smelling bar of organically scented soap (Jeanne’s preference) and began lathering Jeanne in fragrant bubbles. They soaped and washed each other, then tumbled out of the bathroom in one towel, glad that this was the master bathroom rather than the hall’s one.

Jeanne dumped herself onto her bed, naked and tired. Her eyelids drooped. She enjoyed sleeping naked.

Tomorrow was Sunday. One more day before work. One more week before school ended. This would be her last semester teaching, she thought. She had enough money. She could retire while the next 80 years passed, and she was forced to, once again, fake her identity and start anew. But this time, she wouldn’t be alone.

Cereza, she thought dreamily. Cereza would be there, and everything would be ok.

She felt the plush fabric of the towel glide over her. Cereza dried her off dutifully, caressing her skin. It was very non-sexual. Very….loving, Jeanne thought, eyes shut, face red. Hopefully, Cereza hadn’t noticed.

The air conditioner roared to life, and Jeanne felt cold air creep over her body.

“Goodnight, princess,” Cereza sighed, pulling the comforter over Jeanne. She pecked Jeanne on the lips, then placed a lingering kiss on Jeanne’s forehead. Jeanne didn’t open her eyes. She was too tired. But she smiled.

“I can’t live without you,” Cereza hummed. I love you, but said differently, Jeanne thought. And then she was gone.

 

### Chapter 3.4: Rosa

“The nerve,” Rosa grumbled, but a smile played on her lips. Children enjoyed testing boundaries, she reminded herself, very aware that the two adults in the other room were far from small.

Cereza had laid out an unfamiliar set of clothing on her bed for Rosa. Underwear. A pair of skimpy shorts, and a shirt made of cottony, elastic fabric. And a much more comfortable looking nightgown. Options.

Rosa opted for the nightgown.

“Mummy,” Cereza called from the other side of the door, “Can I come in?”

“Yes, love,”

A naked Cereza skulked into the room. She shared an unabashed grin with Rosa.

“Promise me that won’t be a nightly occurrence. I really don’t want to hear my daughter...that way,” Rosa’s brows rose expectantly.

“It won’t,” she nodded, blushing now, “Sorry, mummy.”

“It’s fine. You’re an adult. But I don’t need to know about all the adult things you do.”

Rosa lay on Cereza’s bed, a spacey queen size. Cereza plucked the other set of clothes Rosa had left untouched, scouring for underwear and quickly dressing.

A large, white machine grumbled to life as Cereza flicked a switch, and frigid air saturated the room. Pleasant, Rosa decided, as she realized how truly hot it had been.

Cereza sidled under the covers next to Rosa, who was cataloguing Cereza’s room.

Her eyes landed on a scruffy looking plush hunched over on Cereza’s nightstand. The fabric, though a bit worn, remained firmly sewn together. It’s button eyes gleamed, polished and bright. It seemed to beckon happily to Rosa, like a long lost friend.

“Cheshire!” Rosa gasped, abruptly breaking into a wide grin, “You still have Cheshire.”

“Of course, mummy,” Cereza said, smiling in return, “Jeanne saved him for me.”

She grabbed Cheshire from the nightstand, settling it between herself and Rosa. Rosa’s fingers brushed against Cheshire’s dog-eared ears, terrified of ruining it.

“He’s still in good condition,” Cereza declared, snuggling into the teddy.

A lump settled in the center of Rosa’s throat. Her eyelids fluttered as she attempted to choke back fat, salty tears. When Cereza noticed, her brows shot up.

“Don’t cry, mummy,” she whimpered, frantic. Her hand reached out to wipe the tears from Rosa’s face. Returning Cheshire to his throne on the nightstand, she snuggled close to Rosa, mopping her mother’s tears again with already moist hands.

“Are you sad?” She asked, and Rosa thought she sounded young again. Small. As though a child.

“No,” Rosa shook her head, “I’m happy. I love you.”

“I love you too, mummy.”

The women cuddled closer, and for the first time in many years, Rosa felt a kind of contentment that she had long thought abandoned her.

“Tell me about you and Jeanne,” she inquired, burying her nose in Cereza’s sweet-smelling hair, “Are you girls happy?"

“We are,” Cereza nodded.

Rosa hesitated.

“What about your relationship?”

“It’s coming along.”

Now Cereza hesitated.

“I think we’re both less sure now,” she confided, “Because we both grew and changed so much in that time. But I think we’ll find a way.”

“If it’s meant to be, I know you’ll find a way,” Rosa assured her, refraining from sharing her personal feelings on Jeanne. Jeanne was a perfect daughter-in-law. But Rosa couldn’t force them to love one another.

“How exactly did you and Balder meet?” It was an abrupt, random question.

“Balder was recognized as the right eye, and I was next in line for the Umbran throne. We both ended up the councils of our clans. Naturally, we interacted frequently,” Rosa stated matter-of-factly, losing herself to her memories, “Things just went from there. We were very young. It took us years to move forward, into a relationship. It was forbidden, after all...” She trailed off.

“You were next in line for the Umbran throne?” Cereza whispered, tripping over her words, “Why have I only just learned this?”

Rosa shrugged.

“It was never important. And I never wanted you bogged down by things that could have been, but weren’t. We do carry royal Umbran blood. If you go several hundred ancestors back, you and Jeanne are probably related through some Noatun ancestor.”

“Oh,” her nose crinkled in disgust.

“I said hundreds.”

“I always thought we were one of those families that joined later in.”

“Well, we sort of did,” Rosa clarified, “My mother was the first witch our family had had in years. One of her ancestors had defected from the clans and hidden her magical powers from her descendants.

Your grandmother rediscovered her potential on accident, and immediately returned to Vigrid to give me what she hoped would be a better life.”

“And you ended up being very prodigious,” Cereza said, awe infusing her tone.

“Not prodigious. Just hard working.”

“Don’t be humble, mummy.”

Cereza scowled after a moment.

“I can’t believe I never realized you were an heir. It was obvious. You know, they say-er, said-Jeanne was the only one that ever came close to your mastery.”

“And you!” Rosa protested.

“No one’s ever said that about me.”

“I’m saying it right now.”

Cereza must have read the hurt on Rosa’s face because she said, “Mummy, just because I’m your daughter doesn’t mean I have to be the best.”

“Well you are the best,” Rosa declared with finality. Cereza snorted, but didn’t further pursue the topic. Instead, she buried her face in Rosa’s neck, squeezing her eyes shut.

Rosa had the feeling she was trying not to cry again, and a burning sensation teased her own eyes.

When ever had she been able to do this with her daughter? When ever had they been able to just be a family? And banter? And laugh?

Cereza was an adult, but by the gods, she still felt like Rosa’s baby. She still was.

Quietly, Rosa began to sing,

“ _Fly me to the moon_

_And let me play among the stars_

_Let me see what Spring is like_

_On Jupiter and Mars_

 

_In other words_

_Hold my hand_

_In other words_

_Darling kiss me_

 

_Fill my heart with song_

_And let me sing for ever more_

_You are all I long for_

_All I worship and adore_

 

_In other words_

_Please be true_

_In other words_

_I love you._ ”

She smiled as a soft snore touched her ears.

 

### Chapter 3.5: ???

“Luka speaking.”

“Hey, can I ask you for a favor?”

“Jeanne? How’d you get my number?”

* * *

 

 **End Notes:** It was tough for me to update this chapter. I'm in a not so great situation right now, and my life has been pretty stressful. I just want to apologize for the length of time it might take me to write chapters. 


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